Dorothée Hahne: dance macabre - Quartett-Version

Starting from the danse macabre āad mortum festinamusā from the
medieval Codex Libre Vermell de Montserrat and inspired by its text,
the ādance macabreā for recorder and live electronics was composed for
the recorder-player Maria Hoffmann on the occasion of the 2006 ERTA
competition in Austria. This version for four recorders was composed
for QNG - Quartet New Generation. The electronics consist of a stereo
accompanying tape for which the sounds of the cemetery gate in the
Münsterland town of Schöppingen were recorded and processed in various
digital variations. By transposition and stretching, the sounds of the
cemetery gate become virtual instruments, over which the notes of the
recorders, played live, duplicate themselves, with a time lag, in a
meditative ostinato. The overlayering of four recorder parts gives rise
to complementary rhythms, which allow associations with the medieval
dance steps of the original. The text and original melody of the
medieval danse macabre show that death is an event joyfully awaited,
and that live until then was understood as a kind of phase, or as
preparation for life after death.